Page 128 of Blindside Sinner

I shake my head. “I think we both know that if I wasn’t here, she would be on you like icing on a Twinkie.”

“The icing isinthe Twinkie.”

I nod. “That’s exactly the problem.”

“Okay, point taken.”

“So what are you gonna do about it?”

He smiles. “This.” Then he pulls me in for the kind of kiss that would be extremely inappropriate in front of strangers.

When he finally lets go, I’m lightheaded, swaying, and full-on starry-eyed. And I don’t mind. I don’t mind someone else knowing that I’m all in.

All in.It’s a foreign concept for me, but it doesn’t really matter, does it? These things come when you least expect it. The point isn’t whether or not the idea is one I’m comfortable with. The point is that the choice isn’t really mine.

Not anymore.

He drops a kiss on my nose and when he pulls back, he smiles. Then, loud enough that Jade can hear, he says, “I think we all know that I only have eyes for you.” Softer, so onlyIcan hear, he adds, “But jealousy is a fucking hot color on you.”

“I’m not?—”

But he puts his finger to his lips and smiles. “Don’t bother lying.”

I scowl. “Okay. Maybe a little. But if I’m jealous—and I’m not prepared to say I am—it’s because I know who you are and how you are and the way women look at you.”

That isn’t a wholly fair statement. He hasn’t really looked at another woman—that I’ve seen, anyway—since this whatever-you’d-call-it started between us.

Of course, women stare at him. They give him their numbers. They bend low in his line of sight and tug down their necklines to expose maximum cleavage. So it hasn’t escaped me that he has opportunities.

But the look in his face says he’s never once considered it.

And the bubbly feeling in my gut says how much that means to me.

He gives my ass a playful swat. “You have nothing to worry about, Sloan. Now, go downstairs and let her do your hair so I have something to hold you up by when I fuck you from behind later tonight.”

“Sir!”I protest with a strained laugh.

But when he says it like that, I don’t have a choice. It may or may not be a coincidence that I’m painfully wet.

Beck just grins. Probably because he knows all of that.

What a bastard.

A smug, beautiful bastard.

By the time Jade is finished helping me pick clothes from the trunkfuls of designer labels she brought, her associate has converted the den into a salon. They tag-team my scraggly roots and turn my normally coal black hair into a dusty caramel rose with golden highlights and chestnut lowlights.

And when I look in the mirror, I can give credit where it’s due. I look great. I look like someone else, but that someone else hasnice clothes and jewelry to match, so if I have to dress for the job, then I suppose this is it.

When we’re all finished and they’ve packed up and left, I take all my new clothes and head to my room to put them away. Even if I share his bed every night, my stuff is staying in the guest room. First, because Beck is a clothes whore, and second, because I’m not taking over his life or his house.

As soon as the apartment is finished, I’m heading straight back out there.

Upstairs in the guestroom, Beck has been busy. There are more bags and boxes of clothes on the bed. Lingerie, casual clothes, jeans, t-shirts, sweaters and leggings.

On top of the bed, there’s a note that says,I don’t want to change you. I just want you to know that I see all the sides of you. Even the ones you hide. Each is more beautiful than the last. —B.

The note is the best gift of all.

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